Monogamous animals may be more likely to die out

New research reveals a surprising risk factor for extinction: monogamy. Large mammals that live in pairs or have small harems are far more likely to die out than those with big harems in reserves in Ghana. “In avoiding extinction, it pays to be promiscuous,” says Justin Brashares of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, who presents this work in the June issue of Conservation Biology. “This study is the first to show a strong link between social behavior and risk of extinction in mammals.”

1 in 5 Adults Stay Active; 1 in 4 Sloths

HHS’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today released a new report that shows about 1 in 5 American adults engage in a high level of overall physical activity, including both activity at work and during leisure time. At the other end of the spectrum, about 1 in 4 American adults engage in little or no regular physical activity.

Study shows that workers seek information from people they already know

Even with the Internet at their fingertips, people who really need information are more likely to seek it from other people ? especially people they know. That is what University of Washington researchers discovered when they tracked, in minute detail, how 31 aerospace engineers obtained information vital to their work. The engineers usually chose human sources over written ones and were three times more likely to choose familiar people over experts they didn’t know.<

Risk of excess weight increases in unsafe neighborhoods

Missouri adults who say that they live in unsafe and unpleasant neighborhoods are one and a half times more likely to be overweight than adults who say they live in safe and pleasant communities, according to a new study. Unsafe traffic, crime and a lack of nice scenery in certain neighborhoods may keep residents from getting enough physical activity, which contributes to becoming or staying overweight, say Ross C. Brownson, Ph.D., of the St. Louis University School of Public Health and colleagues, who collaborated with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services on the study.

Study: Prion diseases might be prevented

UK scientists have made a major scientific advance by establishing proof of principle that the development of prion disease can be prevented in mice using monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). The work lays the foundation for further research to explore the potential of mAbs to treat specific prion diseases such as CJD and vCJD. The work is published today (6 March 2003) in Nature.

The common cold coughs up a $40 billion annual price tag

Chances are you or someone you know is battling with a nasty cold right now. The cold bug is definitely biting its way into work places and schools all across the country, forcing millions of people to stay home. Catching a cold isn’t cheap. A new study published in the February 24th edition of Archives of Internal Medicine reports that the cost to the U.S. economy is $40 billion a year – substantially more than other conditions such as asthma, heart failure and emphysema.

Toy choice among boys, girls a matter of monkey business

Sure Santa Claus asks boys and girls what toys they want, but why they want them is a better question. The answer may have to do with a biological pre-wiring that influences boys’ and girls’ preferences based on the early roles of males and females. It’s commonly believed that boys and girls learn what types of toys they should like based solely on society’s expectations, but psychologist Gerianne Alexander’s work with vervet monkeys is challenging that notion. Alexander examined the monkeys as they interacted with toys. She and her collaborator, Melissa Hines of the University of London, found that the monkeys’ toy preferences were consistent along gender lines with those of human children. Though the monkeys had no concept of a “boy” toy and a “girl” toy, they still showed the same gender preferences in playing with the toys, Alexander says. That is, compared to female monkeys, male monkeys spent more time with “boy” toys, and the female monkeys, compared to their male counterparts, spent more time with “girl” toys.

Genes, Neurons, Internet Found to Have Organizing Principles-Some Identical

How do 30,000 genes in our DNA work together to form a large part of who we are? How do one hundred billion neurons operate in our brain? The huge number of factors involved makes such complex networks hard to crack. Now, a study published in the October 25 issue of Science uncovers a strategy for finding the organizing principles of virtually any network ? from neural networks to ecological food webs or the Internet.